


The sky we lost

by Super_Idol_Nico_Yazawa



Category: Love Live! School Idol Festival (Video Game), Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, Sora(game) crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-05 03:22:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11569272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Super_Idol_Nico_Yazawa/pseuds/Super_Idol_Nico_Yazawa
Summary: No one remembers who started it. No one remembers the how long they have been fighting or the reason. This story is about a young altered human and combat medic named Maki Nishikino.





	1. Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting on ao3 so sorry if it doesn't look good or I mess up.
> 
> This story is based on the games Sora and Suguri, and shares the same universe. There will be some overlap between this story and Sora. Please note, that this means there will be spoilers for both games.
> 
> Please let me know if I got the rating for this wrong. I'll change it if I did.

Pain. She was surrounded by darkness, her entire body hurt. 

_Am I alive? Am I dead?_

The young girl slowly opened her eyes and gasped at the world around her. Fire was everywhere, its heat radiating towards her. Buildings were levelled or in ruins around her.

_What happened? Is anyone still alive, where is everyone?_

These thoughts filled her head as she moved to lift herself up.

“aaaah” she screamed in pain, collapsing immediately. Looking down at herself she noticed a lot blood.

 _Is this mine_? she wondered as she examined herself. Her right arm was broken, the bone connecting it to her shoulder protruding out her elbow, its ivory colour in clear sight.

“My humerus?” she muttered to herself.

Examining herself more she saw that her right arm was dislocated, her right knee had its Femur sticking out slightly, and her left leg was badly scraped and partly covered by some debris. Mentally preparing herself she grabbed her right arm and attempted to pop it back into her shoulder.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

She could barely make out a popping sound through her screams of pain. Deciding that she had to put her humerus back into place next, she attempted to push it down with her good arm. Feeling the jolt of pain through her entire body she bit down hard to keep herself from screaming more. Quickly tearing a loose strip of fabric off her skirt, she wrapped it around her arm, using her mouth to help tie it.

_Who am I? What am I doing here?_

She managed to sit up and survey the area around her. She was in a shallow crater, with broken glass littering the street she was in. She couldn’t see anyone in sight, but there appeared to be remains of a large machine of some kind twenty metres away in what was probably a building at some point. She could see a broken bridge further away leading to more of the city, but there was just as much fire and destruction over there.

It occurred to her how strange the situation was. There wasn’t anyone in sight, not even any cars. Surely with a disaster of this scale rescue would have come. Had the military or some other group finished rescuing they should have found her, there wasn’t much rubble around her save for the stuff on her leg. The only thing she could imagine was that any rescuers had thought she was dead so didn’t bother with her.

It was still strange she thought while removing the stuff on her left leg preventing its movement, she couldn’t smell any bodies burning.

_Why would I know what burning bodies smells like? And how did I know how to patch myself up?_

She started crawling towards the side of the road where she spotted a metal rod of some kind.

_If it’s not too hot then I should be able to make a splint of some kind for my leg. After that I just need to find my way to safety. Papa should be able to take care of me-_

Suddenly stopping, a flood of memories came back to her.

_That’s Right. My name is Maki Nishikino. How could I forget?_

Repeating her name to herself she suddenly understood her current situation. There wouldn’t be anyone nearby to rescue her. Grabbing what appeared to be a ruined pipe she tore more fabric off her clothes and set to work making a splint.

_Even if I can’t fly right now, if I can make my way far enough from the fire I should be able to rest safely for a bit. After than I can try to fly back to the bunker. Mama and Papa are doctors, they should be able fix my arm and leg better than I can now._

Standing up carefully, she looked around to see which way to go. She gasped as she saw what appeared to be another person, only 13 metres away from where she woke up. Making her way over, she could tell the person was another girl around her age, in a worse condition then she was herself.

Blood was coming out their head, their left leg twisted in an unnatural angle, with their right leg having their femur and tibia coming out their knee. Their right hand was coming off their arm, attached only by a few muscles, and their left arm was bent backwards. Their body was covered in burns, and they were laying in a small pool of blood in addition to a crater.

Carefully kneeling down, she put her hand on the girl’s neck.

_She’s alive!_

* * *

Much Earlier…  
May 25

Pointing her beam rifle at the robot in front of her, Maki pulled the trigger, taking what could be considered its head off. Turning her head quickly she saw a beam coming straight at her. With no time to think she put her arms in front of her defensively and put up a barrier, narrowly escaping being hit.

Deciding that staying in one place too long is going to result in death, Maki quickly dashed to her right, avoiding some more beams coming her way. She twisted her body to avoid the path of a rocket, and dashed upward through some beams, changing her path yet again as she entered the beams to avoid more enemy bullets.

_Heh, I really need to pay more attention, that last one almost got me._

Turning her head her eyes widened as a small sphere like thing had its yellow eye pointed right at her before blowing up in a shower of sparks and shrapnel.

“Pay more attention Maki, that one almost shot you!”

Turning to face the direction the voice came from she shouted back

“I didn’t need your help Rin. I was just about to get it before you shot it”

“Sure, whatever. Lets just finish up quickly so we can get back and eat”

Turning back to the destruction in front of her, Maki dashed towards a large group of enemies. As soon as she was near them, she pointed her rifle at one and pulled the trigger, then quickly rotating her body to face another she shot it before dashing out of the way of a stream of bullets. Pulling her bazooka out Maki spotted a robot with what appeared to be a head, two arms, and a thick body with a thruster for its waist. Taking no extra time, she stopped and opened fired with the bazooka. Dashing upward she stopped just out of enemy fire to launch another rocket. Continuing this pattern, she quickly dealt with most of the nearby enemies.

Descending towards Rin, Maki saw that Rin had dealt with the remaining enemies.

“Hey, I think we’re done here. I’ll quickly circle around. You should check in with the engineers to see if they suffered any losses” Maki shouted

“I’ll check, but I know we lost several of our own forces. I think it was mostly just the robots, not the machines with people inside” responded Rin before dashing off to where a group of engineers should be finishing fortifying their section.

* * *

“I’m soo hungry!”

“I know, working that hard would make anyone hungry” Maki responded while dumping some food on her tray. They were currently in the cafeteria after their mission. It was around 2pm, but it wasn’t possible to tell by looking outside. The sky was permanently dark and sometimes reddened, with gray and blackened clouds filling it. It was like this for as long as Maki could remember.

The sky had apparently not always been like this, being filled with blue with a yellow sun, bringing warmth to everyone under it. Fields of green had covered the land, with trees filled with all sorts of colours everywhere. She had seen drawings of all this in books as a child, but Maki didn’t know how long ago that had been. The war had been going on for longer than anyone could remember, she would be surprised if anyone even knew what started it. The only thing for certain was that it was one side versus the other, fighting for victory or defeat even if that had lost all meaning long ago. Destruction, indiscriminate killing, and loss of morals, had now become normal. Even if the war was won, there would be nothing left for anyone. 

Sighing, Maki sat down at a table, with Rin joining her shortly. They began eating in silence, unsure how to start a conversation.

“H-Hello. You guys are back? I’m so thankful that you’re safe”

Looking where the voice came from, Maki saw her friend Hanayo by their table holding her own tray of food.

“Kayochin! I missed you.” Rin bounced in her seat upon seeing her best friend, getting up to hug her.

“uuegh, Rin I can’t hug you back while holding my food”

Rin quickly apologised, sitting back down while Hanayo sat beside her.

“So… how was it”? Hanayo asked.

Maki took a second before responding, “they killed some of our engineers, and some of the civilians in the city. They were all unarmed. Why did they have to die? Our soldiers were supposed to be protecting the civilians, but they failed”

“Did anyone survive?”

“yes, only a couple of civilians died, but even one death is too many”. Maki sighed, “I don’t even know if they killed the civilians by accident or not anymore. I really hope it was an accident, but it might have been on purpose just to exterminate us”. Taking a deep breath, Maki continued “I don’t want to fight anymore, I just want us all to live in peace. I only fight to protect the people I care about, I couldn’t care less about the reason for the war. I don’t want to have to keep using first aid on my friends, on the people around me, just because others want them dead.”

Rin gave her a sorry look, unsure of how to respond.

“I want the war to end too. Maybe then the three of us can see the stars together.” Hanyo said. “They’re supposed to be bright lights in the sky, like the lights in the bunkers ceiling, but further away”.

“That would be nice, seeing the sky, the stars…” Maki agreed.

With nothing else to say, they continued eating in silence for several minutes.

“Hey, Maki. Do you remember becoming a modified human with me?” Rin asked.

“Yeah, my father operated on me hoping to protect me. That was three or four years ago now? I don’t think he’s really forgiven himself about it. It was probably going to happen eventually, so I’m glad that he was the one who did it. He gave me the power to protect those I love, and did it for good reasons, trying to avoid causing me any pain. That’s more than I can say about others outside ‘Nishikino Bunker’”.

Rin laughed at Maki mentioning the unofficial name for their bunker city. The real name was Bunker City 37A, but everyone inside just called it Nishikino Bunker after the two doctors who also served as scientists and the mayors of the city.

Finishing lunch, Maki went off to her room hoping to get some sleep. Rin followed her as her room was next to it. Getting up, Hanayo started cleaning off their table. Once done, she decided to take a walk around their bunker.

“I think we should just fortify the place and desert”

 _Huh, what’s that?_ Hanayo thought, moving towards the door the voice came from to eavesdrop.

“Too many innocent kids have died already, too many innocent people. There’s no point in continuing this, our own efforts in this war have been just to protect ourselves.”

 _That’s Maki’s father!_ she thought as her eyes widened, what is he talking about?

“You know the main army would never allow that. They want every person capable of contributing to help. If we tried deserting they would just make an example out of us”

“And when was the last time any of them were out here? They haven’t even contacted us in a week!”

“They’re probably just busy right now. Probably preparing something” a third person spoke up.

“We can just hide our presence, or wait until it’s too costly for them to do anything. It’s not like we’re that important to them. The only person they would want from here would be me, and I’m willing to give myself up to them and face the worst if it means protecting Maki and my wife from anymore harm”

“If we do that we could possibly wait the war out, rebuild the nearby city after. In the meantime, we would have to invite the people still in the city inside.”

“I think the reason they haven’t contacted us or been here recently is because the war is almost over. Both sides are probably at their limits after all this time” yet another person said, “They don’t know exactly where our bunker is, only how to contact us. So, the idea of hiding has some merit to it”

The conversation was abruptly cut off by the sound of an alarm going off.

“Darnit!”

“Is that the alarm for the city?”

Hanayo was quickly shoved to the side as a soldier ran past her.

“More enemies have been spotted closing in on the populated part of the city! We need to remobilise all our forces”

“Huh? How could enemies have made it this close already? What were our scouts doing?”

“I don’t know, but why are they coming towards the city instead of the military outpost?”

“We lost too many people and supplies on the last mission to fortify the area. Do we even still have enough people to fight them off or do we leave the city for dead and hole up here?”

Hanayo ran off quickly, hoping to go anywhere that was slightly safer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably clarify something quickly. In Sora/Suguri, there are 2 types of ammunition.  
> Live ammunition, and beam ammunition. Live ammunition includes things like bullets, rockets, mines, and other things like that. They can’t be dashed through, and sometimes deal more damage. However, they can’t penetrate enemies and sometimes (in the case of rockets and mines) can be destroyed.
> 
> Beam ammunition isn’t always a long beam or however a beam is usually thought of. It’s more like energy/particle weapon or something. It can be an actual beam, a long shot (think of an extra big bullet sort of), a sphere, or other fun shapes. Beam ammunition can be dashed through, and doing so increases your heat and fills your sp bar to let you use hypers. It can’t be destroyed either like live ammunition can. Beam ammunition also penetrates things, so you can hit multiple enemies with the same attack. However, beam ammunition can be reflected in certain levels…
> 
> Since there isn’t an exact description of how beam ammunition works, I’m just using my imagination most of the time. The characters won’t need to know how it works either, there job is to use it not understand it, so that makes writing this slightly easier.  
> Dashing allows your character to move faster, but increases your heat. Higher heat means you take more damage. So 100% heat = 100% more damage taken. While dashing, you can’t attack.
> 
> Sorry about the ~250 words here, but this should clarify some things for people who have never played Sora or Suguri. I’ll try to show this in the story but it might not be clear so I thought explaining it here would be helpful for some people.
> 
> I also figured out there's a "Rich Text" and "HTML" formatting options. I did HTML last time so I'm trying Rich Text this time to see if I can just copypasta from my word document. I really hope this works. Let me know if it looks weird or anything, or if my HTML (last chapter using break and italics tags was better).

Maki ignored all the screams for her to stop as she left the bunker. Upon hearing the alarm, she had grabbed the first weapons she saw and raced outside to stop whatever was triggering the alarm. Even Rin who normally was faster hadn’t reacted as quickly as Maki so she found herself alone flying upwards towards the city hoping to see what the problem was.

Off in the distance she could spot what appeared to be multiple machines racing towards the city with no worry about potential enemies.

_Are they not at all concerned about the nearby military base?_ Maki wondered.

Looking downwards from the ones in the sky she spotted a large centipede-like robot with some sort of cannon on its back.

_That’s…. new._ _I don’t remember any reports of a machine like that on their side, that probably means it’s new._ _That or no one has ever survived against it to report it_ Maki thought grimly.

Looking at her equipment Maki felt unprepared to fight. In her rush, she had only grabbed her trusty Beam Rifle M and her sword. While she was uncomfortable fighting the large machine without her bazooka, Maki dashed forward knowing she didn’t have time to go back and grab it. She looked around and saw several ships with rocket containers on their sides which appeared to be the closest to her.

Taking the first group by surprise, she shot her rifle point blank into one, dashed in front of another, and shot it point blank. As she did this she thought she could hear screams as the rocket-ships burnt up in flame or exploded. Wincing at the sound she continued her assault, they had come to attack and she didn’t have time to feel guilt at killing people instead of machines. They were soldiers so they knew the risks of fighting she reasoned, although it didn’t make her feel much better hearing their cries of pain as she took them down one by one.

Finishing up, she dashed towards the next group. Maki could tell she had lost her advantage of surprise because now machines were coming towards her and shooting. Maki dashed through the beams shot at her, but had to change her course when a hail of bullets came her way.

_So they’ve figured out their beams are mostly ineffective against me while I’m dashing? That makes this more difficult_.

Taking aim, she shot her rifle straight into the eye of another sphere-shaped robot, then started dashing in a circle to get behind them but quickly abandoned that plan when several rockets were shot where she was going. She flew under the ships that fired at her and came upwards with her sword, slicing the wing off one which also took its ability to fire rockets from that launcher. Above them now, she fired several shots in succession at each of them.

The centipede machine was now directly below her. Gripping her sword tightly, she dashed straight down towards its cannon. Moments before reaching it she stopped her dash and lunged with her sword, slicing the first beam supporting the cannon on its back. She dashed towards the next beam and cut it several times before managing to damage it enough.

Several spots along the surface of the centipede retracted revealing bright yellow spots which started releasing glowing yellow spheres around it. This took Maki by surprise who put up a barrier around herself to block the attack before dashing upwards where they were becoming more spread out.

_I can’t destroy that cannon on it with all those beams it’s shooting. I can dash through them but I can’t attack while doing that. That just means I’ll have to destroy each spot producing those attacks._

Maki dashed above it’s body towards the front. Once near the head of it she stopped inside a small opening in the attacks and shot her rifle hitting two of the spots along it. She changed positions once her spot was no longer safe and continued her barrage along its surface. Explosions raced along its surface from her attack, while the machine twisted its body trying to avoid her continuous attacks. Its surface was covered finally in an explosion, ripping off its armour.

As soon as this happened Maki pointed her rifle at the third supporting beam and fired several times into it until it exploded. She had to twist her body just as a rocket came from below before she had time to aim at the final beam. Looking where it came from she spotted several rocket pods protruding from the sides of the giant machine.

“ARE YOU SERIOUS!” she screamed. “JUST HOW MUCH MORE OF YOU DO I HAVE TO DESTROY BEFORE YOU DIE!”.

She dashed backwards towards its right side as some rockets came to where she had just been, but her eyes widened in horror as the rockets started turning to follow. Maki dashed down towards the ground taking a sharp turn before crashing to go under it. Once on the other side she fired her beam rifle at the first rocket pod on that side. In response to her attack it fired several rockets towards her. Dashing forward towards it she barely managed to avoid the rockets and slashed it several times with her sword destroying it. She dashed forward to the last one on that side while mentally preparing herself for the next barrage. Just as it fired its next volley of rockets at her she dashed away from it for around 10m before sharply changing direction back towards it in a triangle shaped path. Stopping in front of it she stared down the barrels of the rocket launchers as she raised her rifle and unleashed it down the barrels, smiling in grim satisfaction as it exploded.

Maki screamed in pain as she felt a burning sensation all over her body and raised another barrier. She spotted several more yellow spots along its surface that were releasing beam spheres around it again.

Maki moved away from the machine and began to fire at its surface again. While focused on it she felt her back burn again. She instantly dashed away and looked to see what snuck up on her, spotting only what appeared to be a bird.

_Why would a bird be all the way –_ Her thought was interrupted by a beam coming from the bird’s mouth at her. Maki rolled out of the way, letting its attack hit the bigger machine. She then responded by shooting at it but could only watch as it avoided her attacks and flew away.

Not having time to think about it she turned her attention back to her main priority. Beams rained down on it as she circled above to get to the last set of rocket pods. Once they were in view she disposed of them with her rifle. Noticing she had a clear shot of the last support beam on the cannon she shot at it, managing to destroy it and having the cannon collapse on the machine before having to move out of the way of the last beam spheres coming from it.

Having just finished with the biggest threat she knew of, she looked around for any more enemies. She managed to spot Rin several hundred metres away fighting off some more robots. Maki began moving towards Rin before noticing another person off in the distance surrounded by some machines. The machines were making no effort to hurt the girl, instead seeming to take orders from her on where to shoot the city. Puzzled by this Maki began to move towards her, leaving Rin to defend herself.

_That girl… she looks like she may be in charge of this attack. She’s not inside a machine herself though, which means she’s probably another altered human._

As Maki approached the girl, the machines around her dispersed down towards the city. Only nine bird shaped things remained around the beige haired girl.

“Are you the one causing all the issues here?” The girl suddenly asked.

Looking at the girl Maki could see that she appeared to be a little frightened. However, she also looked dead inside, as if she didn’t care about anything anymore.

“The only one causing issues here is you and your friends, attacking an innocent city for no reason”

Looking slightly puzzled the other girl responded “I’m not sure what you mean. This city is abandoned, I’m just here to flatten it. Why would you defend it?”

“This city isn’t abandoned, there are people still living here. If it was abandoned then why destroy it?”.

“Because I was told to. If I don’t do what I’m told then what’s the point of me existing? I’m not good at anything which is why I was assigned to level the city and recover whatever scraps of supplies were left”

 “Please, you don’t have to do this. There are so many innocent people in there, they didn’t do anything. You don’t need to destroy the city just to try and prove to yourself that you should exist.” Looking around Maki saw Rin struggling with the number of enemies and realised she was running out of time. “If I were to destroy those machines, would you try and stop me?”

“If you intend to get in the way then I have no choice but to stop you. That’s the only reason for my existence now anyways, and as another altered human you should know what will happen to me if I don’t try to stop you. It’s better to die here trying then it is to be a burden to the people around me”

As soon as the girl finished talking the bird looking robots rushed towards Maki, dispersing as she tried to aim at them. Surrounding Maki, they released beam spheres at her forcing her to dash downwards. Maki stopped her dash quickly at shot at three of them, groaning in frustration as they avoided her attack. Next, she tried dashing towards the other girl but the girl moved out of the way letting some birds take her place to shoot at Maki. Maki dashed upwards instead but had to make a sharp turn to the right as a bird moved above her and put a mine out to block her path.

The birds moved towards the other girl and started circling her while releasing mines and beam spheres around her. Maki moved backwards while shooting her rifle at the girl, before dashing back as the beams got too close to her.

_Is she controlling those bird things around her? They don’t appear to be regular machines._

Maki dashed straight at the girl again, twisting her body at the last second to avoid colliding with mines. The girl moved out of the way but this left Maki right behind one of the birds. Maki quickly slashed at it with her sword managing to take a wing off. Unable to fly any more the bird fell from the sky, quickly disappearing.

 Looking back at the girl Maki saw pain on her face. Without hesitating Maki fired at the girl forcing her to dodge. Watching her movements Maki took a shot where the girl would appear. Moments before the shot hit another bird moved in front, taking the attack instead and blowing up in the process. Maki began dashing to follow the girl’s movements, pausing every few seconds to fire several shots at her. Two birds suddenly shot upwards before firing two long beams at Maki who dashed through the attacks, firing at them once they stopped.

_Only five left if I’m counting correctly. This has been easier than expected. I should still keep my guard up and not do anything dangerous_.

They were now low enough that Maki could look directly into the windows of several buildings. Looking downwards she saw some engineers working on fortifying the base of a high-rise to prevent collapse. The girl noticed them as well, and three birds formed a triangle above her facing the engineers. Beam particles formed at their mouth signalling their attack. Some engineers looked up and saw this, screaming for help.

“No!” Maki yelled as she began dashing to block the attack. The remaining birds spread their wings and unleashed a hail of bullets at her, managing to hit her several times. Maki was sure that she wouldn’t make it in time, but managed to get in front and create a shield just as they attacked. She was surprised when the beams didn’t hit her shield directly, instead it seemed that their aim was off as the attack would have landed near the engineers instead of hitting them had she not blocked it.

Maki immediately dashed towards the girl, stopping her dash and spinning to slice another bird in half with her sword before continuing again. She stopped right in front of the girl, pointing her rifle at her. The girl moved away but not fast enough to avoid Maki’s attack hitting her stomach.

Colour drained from the girls face as she looked at Maki sadly, managing to choke out “I guess I failed again?” before falling from the sky, blood spurting out her wound the entire way.

Maki covered her mouth feeling sick from what just happened. _Why didn’t she deploy a shield to protect herself? Did I just kill her? She’s around my age, how could I kill someone my age?_

Thoughts racing through her head, Maki dashed downwards to where the girl was collapsed on the ground. Landing next to the girl, Maki kneeled down to check for any sign of life. Maki could feel a weak pulse from the girl, but with all the blood she was losing she needed medical attention right away to have any chance of surviving. Looking up, Maki spotted Rin still fighting off enemy robots.

_If I try to save this girls life, I can’t help Rin. But if I help Rin then this girl will die._

Maki looked around praying that someone else would be nearby who could help, but no one was there. Her head down in defeat with what happened weighing her mind down, Maki pulled a small first aid kit off her belt and opened it up. She took out some rubber gloves from it and put them on. Taking a shot of morphine out, she stuck the needle into the girls arm and pressed down on the syringe to relieve the girl of pain if she was still conscious. She next pulled some gauze out. Maki quickly examined the girls wound. It went through the right side of the body above the hip, near the stomach.

_Shouldn’t she have taken less damage than this if she’s an altered human?_

With no time to waste, Maki didn’t think much more about it as she began to work to stabilise the dying girl, ignoring her own injuries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know much about medicine so I had to look some stuff up. I probably got some stuff wrong (such as how to treat a wound) so I’m sorry to any medical people reading this. 
> 
> In case people didn't see notes above, last chapter was HTML (italics and break tags), this chapter used rich-text editor. Let me know if anything looks weird. Sorry, this is my first time on ao3.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I came up with Maki’s father’s name from a custom map for CSS. If anyone’s ever heard of something like makos_reactor.bsp then you’ll know where I got the name from. It’s also close to Maki so it works out. Maybe I should call Maki’s mother Maku to continue the pattern…

 

June 2

“Hello, is anyone there? Bunker City 37A, if anyone is still alive please respond now”

“Hello, this is Mako Nishikino speaking, who is this?”

“We’re on your side, sorry about not communicating with you earlier. Our base in your area was attacked around two weeks ago, and all radio communications went down there. We just finished repairing the radio tower at the base this morning. What’s the status of the city bunker?”

“We’re fine, the enemy still doesn’t know our location. What happened at the base?”

The door to the communications room opened. “Papa, what’s going on?”

“Maki please hold on a second” Mako whispered. “Sorry, could you continue?”

“A surprise attack took the base and communications out. It had been very rainy and there was some fog moving in, the base’s radar and other equipment had been malfunctioning all day and the people there were trying to fix it. I was told that eventually the base had been surrounded in fog and then enemies came from nowhere and attacked the base. There weren’t very many survivors sadly. What’s the status of the city nearby? Our scouts had spotted an enemy force moving in the area but with communications down we weren’t able to contact you.”

“We handled it, the city is fine for now”

“That’s good. Could we speak to some of the people who dealt with it then? We’d like to ask them some questions”

“They-“ Mako was quickly interrupted by Maki who responded “There was a modified human with them who controlled some sort of bird robots. There was also a large centipede like robot that had a beam cannon on its back. They were attempting to destroy the city”

“I’m not aware of the enemy having any robots like that, we’ll need to add that to our database. What about the modified human? What happened to it?”

Before Maki could respond anymore her father spoke up, “she’s dead”

Maki was upset hearing that. She thought the girl was still alive in hospital, and that she would have been told about the girl’s status if anything changed.

“Good. By the way, where exactly is the bunker located? We only know the general location of your bunker, and it would be good to know the exact location if the bunker comes under attack. It would also be good for us to know where lots of our important scientists are”

“Sorry I can’t tell you that. If the enemy was to listen in to our communications somehow then saying anything risks telling them where we are, and it would be very bad if they knew where so many of our scientists were”

“While true, it’s also dangerous for us not to know”

“This argument has been done many times before so we’re not doing it again. You can look in one of your files if you need a reminder of the agreement between our scientists and doctors and your generals about the need for this location to be secret”

Finishing his sentence, Mako disconnected them and turned the communication device off.

“Shouldn’t that be on to listen for communications?” Maki asked.

“It’s fine, one of our radio operators will handle it later. Besides, we have another operator listening for communications so this radio doesn’t need to be on”

“So, is that girl really dead?” Maki asked sadly.

“No, I lied about that. If HQ learned she was alive they would want her to be killed or handed over to them. From how you described her I thought it would be best for us to question her ourselves instead.” Taking a breath, he continued “Anyways she hasn’t woken up still, and there’s no guarantee that she will survive”.

“Oh. Would it be ok for me to check up on her?” Maki asked.

“Go ahead”

* * *

Maki opened the door to the room the girl was staying in. Maki was expecting to see her unconscious still, but was shocked to see the girl sitting up in bed looking very confused. The girl noticed Maki come in and turned to look at her.

“Umm hello. Have you seen Umi or Honoka?” The girl asked nervously.

“Sorry, I don’t know who those people are” Maki responded, which caused the girl to look even more confused.

“Oh. Where am I? I don’t recognise here.”

“You are currently in hospital after getting badly injured” Maki stated. “I would recommend trying to get as much rest as you can as you just woke up after being unconscious for eight days. You’re still on life support and I don’t know when it will be fine to remove it yet”

“Are Honoka and Umi ok then?” the girl asked, “Are they in hospital too?”

“Sorry but I’ve really never heard of them before, and I don’t know if they’re ok either. What’s your name?” Maki asked.

“My name is Kotori Minami”

“Were you controlling those birds then Kotori?” Maki asked, curious to what they were.

“Birds? Oh, you mean my bits, don’t you?” Kotori said. “I control them – aah” suddenly holding her head, Kotori continued “Sorry, my head hurts”

Maki leaned forward and helped Kotori lay down, adjusted her pillow to make her more comfortable. When she looked at Kotori again, Maki noticed Kotori had the same look from when she first met her, like she was dead inside.

“Where am I right now?” Kotori asked again.

“I told you, you’re in hospital–“ Maki was interrupted as Kotori restated her question.

“I mean where exactly am I? Not just in a hospital”

Sighing, Maki decided to tell her what happened. “It looked like you were leading a small army to destroy a populated city having been told it was abandoned. Me and my friend worked together to destroy the army, and I confronted you. You refused to surrender and we fought, ending with me badly injuring you. I immediately applied first aid and brought you back here to recover”

“So that’s why I recognised you. Why did you save me then?” Kotori asked.

“You remember anything?” Maki asked surprised.

“Seeing you and being asked about my bits made me remember parts of what happened” Kotori responded. “I can no longer feel my bits either. I guessed that you must have saved me then as you were the only other person I remember being there”. Turning her head to look at Maki, she asked “So why did you save a failure like me?”

“I’m a medic, so it’s my job to save people. Even if the world is full of killing, I don’t want to kill people. Even if I must kill the people piloting those machines, I’m not going to be happy about it. But if it means protecting the people I care about then I will. I’m not going to kill people just to kill them like others though. Seeing how you were young like me and could still be saved, I couldn’t just leave you to die. So please don’t do anything that’s going to force the people here to kill you”

Kotori looked thoughtful for a couple of seconds before talking. “Could you get me some water please? I’m feeling thirsty” she said sadly.

“Umm sure. That should be fine” Maki said before getting up to leave. Exiting the room, she walked several steps before stopping, having a bad feeling about leaving Kotori. Quickly going back, she opened the door only to see life support tubes wrapped around Kotori’s neck with her pulling them tighter. Seeing an anesthetic on the counter, Maki grabbed it and then rushed to Kotori, injecting her with the needle while trying to hold her down to prevent her from choking herself. After Kotori stopped moving, Maki pushed a button to call some nurses over. When they arrived she explained what happened to them, before leaving as she was no longer needed.

 _Why would she do that?_ Maki thought while upset. _I had told her not to do anything stupid_.

While going towards her room to calm down, Hanayo and Rin spotted her and noticing tears, came over to see what was wrong.

“Maki, are you ok?” Hanayo asked.

“Yeah, you’re not usually like this. Cheer up please.” Rin said at the same time.

“That girl from before finally woke up. Her name is Kotori. We talked for a bit before she tried to kill herself” Maki managed to say between some sobs. “After everything I did to save her life, she decided it would be better just to kill herself anyways”.

Unsure of what to say, Hanayo and Rin just hugged her until she stopped sobbing.

“Rin, the military contacted us again. You should ask papa or someone else for details. I just want to read alone in my room for a bit if that’s ok”

“Sure, I was going to go help fix some of the damage done to the city, so see you later then”. She said before leaving.

Hanayo gave Maki another quick hug. “It’s ok. If you need to talk anymore, I’m always available to help”.

After they left, Maki entered her room, grabbing a random book off her shelf before laying down in bed to read.

* * *

“Get back right now!” Rin shouted, firing her machine gun in front of the crowd of people to disperse them. “We’re trying to fix these homes that got damaged, you can’t just steal from the people who live here still!”. Groaning in frustration, Rin looked around hoping that it was just her having difficulties so someone could help, but she could see it was bad for everyone else to.

A loud voice from behind Rin suddenly yelled “All civilians stay back or we will have to forcibly remove you”. Looking behind her Rin saw another humanoid shaped machine with large speakers attached to its back. As she looked back she spotted some people trying to sneak around the soldiers while holding a box. She dashed in front of them and yelled “what part of GET BACK is so hard to understand for you?”

One of them quickly reached into the box and pulled out a bottle with a cloth stuck inside and lit it with a lighter in his pocket. Before he could throw it, Rin sprayed her machine gun at them killing them all within seconds. “They have molotovs!” she shouted right before the area erupted into chaos. A large group of people charged forward, throwing molotovs at the machines soldiers were piloting. The soldiers responded by firing their beams and bullets into the crowd while a speaker ordered the civilians to disperse immediately or be killed. More rioters appeared leaning out of windows and threw molotovs and explosives down at the soldiers and engineers.

Rin dashed ahead of some rioters who got through heading towards the engineers. Spotting her they threw their molotovs and grenades. Without thinking Rin fired her machine gun at them even as a grenade exploded right in front of her. As soon as they were dead she dashed over to the nearby engineers to see if they were ok. Several of them were injured and a few were killed from the explosives. She watched helplessly as one on fire rolled on the ground in a futile attempt to extinguish himself.

“Do we have any tear gas or anything non-lethal we can use?” she shouted at the engineers.

“No! I think the only gas we would have is mustard gas, but we wouldn’t have brought that since we didn’t expect something like this” an engineer called back.

Groaning to herself, Rin dashed towards the rest of the soldiers hoping to stop anyone else getting through. Once she arrived she could see that the chaos had stopped as quickly as it started. Bodies littered the ground with the street covered in red. Several people were still alive writhing in pain but no medics were around to help them.

“Did we suffer any casualties” she heard from her walkie talkie.

“I think some got through to the engineers”

“We lost some people on the east side, but no one got through”

Rin click a button on hers and reported “we lost a few engineers, I’m not sure how much though”

Placing it back on her hip she thought _I’m not volunteering for this again._

* * *

Maki’s reading was interrupted by a knock at her door. She quickly checked the clock beside her bed.

_It’s been a few hours already?_

“Maki, could I come in please?” she heard her mother say from behind the door.

Laying back down she reluctantly called out “sure”.

Her mother came in and stood beside her bed. “I’ve managed to calm Kotori down a bit, I don’t think she’ll do something similar soon. A few nurses are nearby just in case.” When Maki didn’t say anything she continued, “I know what happened is quite shocking to see. If you want to talk me and your father are available, same with your friends.”

“It’s fine, I was just really surprised and shocked.” Maki responded without looking.

“If you’re sure…” her mother said unconvinced that Maki was fine. “Your father was hoping you could go grab Rin from the city and check the military base out. From what we’ve heard Rin will probably want to do something else besides guarding the engineers there, and we’ve lost contact with that base again”

“Sure” Maki said as she got up and put her book away.

“If you see anything dangerous, come back right away and let us know. Don’t get into a fight if you don’t absolutely have to please” her mother called after her.

After Maki grabbed all her stuff she went out to meet Rin.

“Hey Rin, we’re supposed to check the military base again. Contact with them was lost again. Also, what happened here?” she asked looking at the roads in confusion. _Why are those red?_

“There was a riot, and several of us died” Rin said. “Let’s go now, I don’t want to have to put up with the smell or sight of this any more”

They flew off together towards the base, keeping an eye out for any signed of danger along the way.

“Are the houses fixed at least?” Maki asked.

“Not yet, I was told it might be a couple more days to fix them. After that the engineers will head to the unoccupied parts of the city to fix the damage there. I don’t think I’m going to help with this anymore though, what happened was sickening. At least while fighting a battle all the people are piloting machines so you can’t see them die”

“Why are we all killing each other anyways? There’s no point to any of this”

“Because the people in charge would rather see the world dead with them able to claim they won, instead of getting together and fixing this planet before it’s completely dead”

“I think I overheard papa talking about fixing the world before. I have this feeling it was something I wasn’t supposed to hear though”

“Fixing the world sounds nice at least”.

“Rin, look over there”. Maki said while pointing in front of them.

As they arrived at the base it was immediately clear why contact had been lost. The radio tower was in pieces, and smoke filled the air above the base. Maki spotted a fire in one corner of the base.

 _Must have been their munitions depot_ she thought. Maki was unable to see any people in the base. _Were they ambushed again?_

“Maki, look over there” Rin said as she pointed at some fog in the distance. “It looks like it’s moving away from the base”

“Don’t be silly, you’re probably just imagining it” Maki said quickly. “Let’s focus on finding out what happened here and finding any survivors”

Once they landed they both started looking around for any signs of survivors. “Hey Rin, I think I found something here” Maki called out. When Rin ran over she pointed at a hatch on the floor with some blood around it. Bracing themselves, they opened it and looked down. Inside was a ladder with some blood at the bottom. Rin started climbing down first followed by Maki. _It’s some kind of bunker down here, probably for waiting out any attacks_ Maki thought. Rin had already made it to the only door in the room and pulled her machine gun out. Waiting for Maki to signal she’s ready, she knocked on the door and called out “is anyone alive in there?”.

“Who’s there?” A voice called out.

“We’re from Nishikino bunker, coming to investigate what happened” Rin responded.

“Bunker City Thirty Seven A” Maki said giving Rin an annoyed look. “Use the official name when talking to military personal from outside our bunker” she whispered.

“Sorry” Rin whispered back.

“Come in. Are any of you a medic?” Someone said as they entered.

“I am” Maki said. “Also, please lower your weapon, it’s making me uncomfortable”.

Around them was seven people covered in blankets, with another five laying on mattresses injured. Only three people were not injured.

“What happened?” Maki asked.

“Fog had moved in so we were on alert after what happened last time. Once again, enemy machines appeared and started tearing the base to pieces. The first thing they did was knock the radio tower out and EMP the base.” One of the uninjured soldiers said.

“Right”. Turning to Rin, Maki said “Rin, go back and grab an ambulance carrier along with a couple of medics to pick these soldiers up. I’ll stay here and try to help prevent any more people from dying.”

Nodding at her, Rin ran out to do as she was told.

“Sorry, but could you go out to check for more enemy’s please? There’s still one out there I think.” The medic asked.

“There really isn’t, me and Rin already looked”. Maki responded annoyed.

“Why do you think we had weapons pointed at the door? It’s because someone is still out there.”

“Fine, if it will help you all calm down I’ll go up and check. Make sure no one else dies then” she said. _I’m a medic, I should be healing people. Not going up just so I can come back and tell them “told you so”_.

Once outside she started checking each building again. _There’s really no one here, they’re just imagining things_.

Opening a door to another building she immediately stopped, staring at the person inside. They were a short, black haired girl with twin tails. Quickly pointing her weapon at the girl she demanded “who are you?”.

“ughh”. Turning to look at Maki the girl said “I’m someone you probably don’t want to mess with, so please stop pointing that at me. Let’s face it, I don’t want to fight right now, and you don’t want to fight, so let’s just both agree to pretend I wasn’t here and I’ll be on my way soon enough”

 _Red eyes? That’s an unusual eye colour._ Shaking the thought out of her head she asked “Did you attack here?”

“I didn’t kill anyone if that’s what you’re wondering” she stated bluntly. “I was just here to supervise some things and then take care of some business here, I’ll be leaving soon enough”

“And what business would you have here?” Maki asked suspiciously.

“None of your business. What are you even doing here?” She said. “Also, PLEASE LOWER YOUR WEAPON NOW” she shouted surprising Maki. “I know about those people down below over there” she said pointing towards the building with the bunker, “I know they’re injured and I could have killed them at any time if I felt like it, but I left them alone”. Deciding the girl wasn’t going to do anything to her, Maki lowered her weapon.

“Aha, this looks good” The girl said as she held some papers.

“And those are?” Maki asked while trying to get a better look.

“As I said, none of your business. And this one looks promising… oh.” Looking at Maki now the girl asked “Maki Nishikino is it?”

“Ueeh, how did you know my name” Maki asked surprised.

“Only person with hair that looks like a tomato that I know of” she said as she showed Maki one of the things she was holding. Looking at it Maki saw a picture of herself, her name, and some other things written. “Judging by your face I’m guessing you didn’t know your own military was keeping a record of you here?”

“No” Maki said. Suddenly remembering the girl was an enemy she thought _Oh no, how much information on me do they have?_ Fire came from the girls hand and the paper started burning, getting dropped onto the ground.

Maki stared at it before asking “you can control fire?”

The girl stared at Maki for a few seconds before bursting out laughing. “Are you an idiot or something?”

“How am I an idiot? You just lit…” she stopped as the girl showed her a lighter. “oh”. Just staring at the report burning for a moment she asked “why burn that? You could probably have gotten more information on me”

“Because I’m nice and thoughtful and decided you wouldn’t like that. Besides, I didn’t come here for that. You should be thanking me for doing you a favour and not bringing this back to my base” The girl said smugly.

“Right… thanks”

“What are you doing here still, admiring my cuteness?”

Cheeks flushing red Maki stammered out “don’t be silly”. _Although she is kind of cute_ Maki thought before realising what she was thinking. Taking a second to regain her composure she asked “since you know my name, what’s yours?”

“Well aren’t we greedy? Well I suppose telling you wouldn’t hurt. I’m Nico and no, I’m not telling you my last name” she said amused. “Shouldn’t you be helping those injured people below? You are a medic according to those papers I burnt” she asked.

“Right, although I should also make sure you don’t do anything”

“I was never here remember?” Nico asked. “We did agree on that didn’t we? That’s why we’re not at each others throats right now, besides you being unwilling to hurt someone as cute as me”. Maki rolled her eyes at the comment. “Anyways, you do owe me something for not hurting those people, telling you my name, and burning that document” Nico said with a playful look.

“What?”

“Yeah, I think a kiss on the cheek should do” Nico said while tapping her cheek. “With all the staring at me you’ve been doing, as well as not wanting to leave me, this is probably a reward for you”.

“I-I’m not doing that” Maki stammered as her cheeks flushed redder.

Sighing Nico said “aww, am I not good enough for you?” while pouting.

 _She’s a good actor, I’ll give her that_ Maki thought. “T-That’s not it” she said, looking away embarrassed. _How did it come to this? Still, it’s better than trying to kill each other_.

Fine then Nico said walking over to Maki. Planting a kiss on Maki’s cheek she bounced back. “ueeh, what was that for?” Maki said even more embarrassed now.

“My reward for earlier. Anyways, why don’t you go check on those engineer’s tomato? And remember, I was never here”.

“I’m not a tomato” Maki called back as she left. Touching her cheek she thought _really, how embarrassing._ Spotting the ambulance carrier landed, she ran over.

“Maki? Why are you up here? I thought you would be down with the injured.” Rin said confused.

“The people thought there was somebody else still here and sent be to go check…”, remembering what Nico said she continued “but no one was here. They were just imagining it”

“Oh. Well you looked a bit flustered running over here. Are you that out of shape or-“ Rin smiled.

“that’s enough Rin” Maki warned.

Seeing some medics carrying injured people on stretchers Maki ran over to help. Once everyone was on the carrier they started back to the bunker. Maki looked out quickly to check if Nico was following or watching them but didn’t see anything. _I guess she’s not willing to risk being seen._

“There were lewd things, weren’t there?”

“RIN!”

* * *

Once the ambulance carrier landed inside, several doctors came over to take the injured to the hospital.

“The people on board didn’t see where the bunker is right?” Mako asked a medic.

“No, we made sure of that”

“Good”. Walking over to Maki he called out “Don’t worry, we’ve got this. If you could check on Kotori for me that would be helpful. If you can get any useful information from her that would be nice, but don’t push it because I’m not sure how stable she is yet”.

Nodding at him, Maki went off to the hospital room with Kotori inside. As she entered the room she saw Kotori still on life support.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Maki asked.

“I’ve been better. I’m still the same failure as always” Kotori said sadly.

“Everyone messes up. You’re not a failure” Maki said trying to cheer her up.

“Thanks for the thought but I really am, even others said I was, that’s why they avoided giving me important jobs”.

 _This isn’t helping, I’ll just change the topic to something else_. “Well that’s enough of that subject, how about we talk about what we like doing?” Maki suggested hopefully.

“Sure, what do you like doing” Kotori asked, brightening up at the change of topic.

“I like reading, playing the piano, listening to music” Maki said.

“I’d like to hear you play the piano sometime, I’ve never heard anyone play it before” Kotori said. “What I like doing is sewing. I really like making cute outfits”.

“Maybe you could try sewing some stuff, or fixing clothes around here. It would give you something to do” Maki said. _Hopefully she’ll also be able to live a more normal life here then, instead of having to be a prisoner_.

Suddenly looking unwell Kotori held her stomach. She lay down as tears ran down her face.

“Are you ok?” Maki asked, worried about her sudden reaction.

“Everything hurts so much. My bits were destroyed but they had become a part of me, so now it really hurts and feels like something’s missing” Kotori managed to saw between her sobs.

Maki quickly grabbed some pain medicine and something to help Kotori sleep. “Here, drink this” she said. Kotori accepted her offer and was asleep within minutes. _I think I know something that might help her_ Maki thought as she left to go find something. Looking around the hospital she found a storage room where some stuffed animals and toys for kids in hospital were. Maki grabbed as many as she could and brought them back to Kotori’s room, setting them down beside the sleeping girl.

 _It may not replace her bits but maybe these can help her with some of her pain. Pretending they’re her bits might help. At the very least she can hug them._ Maki pulled the blanket so it would cover Kotori. _Maybe Kotori could teach me and Hanayo to sew and we can all make some stuffed animals together_ Maki thought, a smile forming on her face.

* * *

“Hey, do you know where Maki and Rin are right now?” Mako his wife as he gave her a quick kiss.

“Umm, I think they’re currently with Hanayo and Kotori making some stuffed animals” she said.

“Thanks. I need to contact some people right now, so could you make sure no one interrupts me please?” he said.

“Sure.”

Sighing as he walked in to the room, he checked to make sure he was the only one in there.

 _Good_.

Making sure to lock the door before turning the radio on, he started going through different channels and encryption frequencies.

“Hello, Mako here. Is anyone there right now?”

Several seconds passed by before a response. “Hello. I’m not sure who you are?”

“I’m part of the secret project. I was told you had been informed of the basic idea and was hoping you would be interested.”

There was some more silence and then “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, what secret project?”

“Ah, right” he said. “The sky is ruined”.

“Ok. You are who you say you are then. Sorry, we were told not to talk about anything without the password in case.”

“It’s fine. Were you guys interested then?” he asked.

“Sounds good to me. You’re one of the people in charge of this I think?”

“That would be correct. If you know anyone else who would be helpful, please see if you can convince them to join us. I’ll let the others know about your decision and the people on your side will give you our communication frequencies and encryption keys.”

“Sure. I really hope this works and we can fix the world. If we’re caught then we will be in a lot of danger you know, so we’re taking a big risk here.”

 “Thank you very much for agreeing to help.” Mako said. “If there are any problems and your safety is threatened, I’ll make sure you guys are brought over here.”

“You’re taking a big risk yourself, aren’t you?” the other person asked.

“Yes. Anyways, I should get going now.”

Before turning communication off he heard “Wait!”

“What?” Mako asked curiously.

“One of the others here, they just let me know that they think they know one modified human who might be willing to join our cause.”

“A modified human… That’s great.” Mako said.

“We’ll try talking to her and let the contacts here know what she says.”

“Sure. Tell them to let me know what’s going on with her as soon as possible please.”

“Sounds good. Anyways, we have to go now. Bye.” The person said before disconnecting.

Mako smiled to himself. _Things are going good so far. Hopefully this modified human is willing to join our cause_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first new chapter. I don't know when the next will come though, so sorry in advance.
> 
> My detailed outline for including Nico, 110 words. My higher-level outline just says “Nico happens to be there also”. Entire scene with Nico, ~850 words. I guess I managed to fulfil my goal of sticking more Nico moments in. Writing Nico and Maki is quite fun.
> 
> As always, comments/reviews are appreciated. Let me know what I’m doing wrong, what I could do better, suggestions, or anything else you can think of.
> 
> Also, happy (late) birthday Nico. Nico Nico Nii


	4. Field Battle

“This had better be worth my time!” she shouted at the group in front of her. “I already killed someone on my way here because of you people telling me to make sure I’m not followed”

“It’s fine, we just wanted to let you know about something that you will probably be interested in” said one of the engineers nervously. “There’s a group of us, friends and enemies, working together to try and repair this world to make it liveable in again. We’ve all stopped trying to win this war as it’s pointless. We were hoping you would join us. It wouldn’t mean abandoning the war yet, but to just go along with command doing the minimum required and helping to defend us and bring supplies between both sides and our new third side.”

“You’re all crazy! Why shouldn’t I just turn you in right now for being traitors!” The girl shouted at them. “Or maybe I should just kill you all right now and be done with this.”

“This would benefit your family, isn’t that the entire reason you became a modified human?” another person asked her.

“That doesn’t explain why I should join you. Winning this war will help my family, and that has a better chance of protecting them then your crazy idea”

“If this war is won then what? If the other side wins your family dies, if this side wins then there is no future left for them anyways because this world will be dead. By helping us you can keep playing the part of a loyal soldier while hopefully giving your family a future”

The girl considered what they said for a moment. “If I’m caught helping you then my family will be killed, and I’ll be tortured to death”

“Eventually they will come for your family when they run out of people to fight. Joining us will give them a place they can hide”

“Give me a minute to think about this” she said before leaving so she could be alone to consider what they said.

When she returned she responded “Fine, I’ll help. But if anything bad happens to my family I’m going to personally make sure that you all suffer the same. I also don’t want my name to be referred to in any communications just in case”

“That’s fine with us. Thank you for accepting to help us”

* * *

 

June 6

Attacks on military bases had been increasing. Too many reports mentioned fog coming in before the attack for it to be coincidence. Now Maki and Rin along with several others from their bunker were flying towards their meeting point in preparation for a massive battle.

“How long have we been flying now” Rin asked.

“Around forty minutes. At this speed, we will reach our destination in about twenty more minutes. After that we’ll see what happens” someone answered on her walkie talkie. Rin groaned in frustration at the answer.

“Rin, make sure to not dash around too much and get dangerous amounts of heat” Maki said.

“How come I have to use a normal walkie talkie but you get a nice earpiece you can use?” Rin asked her.

“Because you broke yours by playing with it too much” Maki reminded her. “It’s not a toy Rin, and until you learn that you’re not getting another one. Besides, I also have a walkie talkie like you in case my earpiece breaks or malfunctions. It might be more boring but it’s far more reliable”.

They continued along in silence, with Rin occasionally trying to start a conversation but immediately being told to stop talking so much. After twenty minutes, they spotted a giant army waiting for the battle to start.

 _So many people are here. How large is this battle going to be?_ Maki wondered, nervously looking around at all the people and machines. _We have air units, land units including some sort of large machine. That’s going to immediately be targeted by their modified humans. There’s also that lake we’re nearby, does it have anything under it?_

As they came closer the forces from the bunker split off to join other machines similar to theirs to wait, leaving Rin and Maki alone as another person flew towards them.

“Hey there, names?” the girl asked.

“Maki Nishikino”

“Rin Hoshizora”

“Perfect, right on time. Follow me” she said as she led them towards another group of people.

 _All modified humans?_ Maki thought.

Once in the group one of them began talking.

“Alright now that everyone is here, I’m going to explain what’s going on and what our jobs are so listen up because I don’t want to repeat myself. My name is Nath, to my right” she said gesturing toward the girl who lead them there “is Sakano. She will explain what we know about the enemy once I’ve finished. We currently are preparing for a large scale open field battle which is why you can see so many people gathered here right now. Because I don’t feel like lying I’m going to tell you this, by the end of today you will not be seeing some of the people here right now ever again” This earned some nervous looks from everyone.

“Question, do you know that for sure?” a girl asked who Maki recognised as Nozomi.

“Yes I do” Nath stated bluntly. “Some of us are going to die so there’s no point to getting to know people here you don’t already know. What you should do is make sure you can recognise everyone here because command doesn’t want friendly fire. While we’re on that topic, make sure you shoot the enemies and not our own people. Any other questions right now?”

 _Seems clear so far. I don’t see anyone else asking questions_ Maki thought.

“Since there’s no questions right now I will begin informing everyone of our forces strengths and explain our orders. We currently have an number of regular piloted machines here, ground and air. I was not told how many we have, but looking at them all you can see it’s a lot. We also have some drones here. Once again, I do not know the exact number so do not ask me. We do not have anything under the water over there-” Nath said pointing to the nearby lake “- but we have some people ready to intercept anything there”. Nath looked around to make sure everyone was still following what she was saying before continuing.

“Our orders are relatively simple. Kill any enemy you find and keep our people alive. We want minimum damage to the machines and soldiers inside. Clear out big groups of enemies and make sure you don’t get hit. There will be modified humans here so if you find one, kill them as they are our highest priority. We also have super weapons here which are going to be targeted by their machines and modified humans, so protect our super weapons from them. They will have some of their own super weapons as well so make sure to take those out. Now, if there are no questions I will let Sakano tell us about their forces.”

Sakano moved in front of the group as Nath moved back. “Ok everyone since I didn’t see any questions I’ll let you all know about what information we have on the enemy. They should have a land based particle cannon so we will need to avoid getting hit by that. It will look like a very large mechanical spider with a giant cannon on its back. Next, we know they have a large air cannon. It looks like a circular platform with a dome on top, with a cannon sticking out of that. So if you see what looks like a flying observatory, destroy that. They should also have an anti-air system that they will use to shoot us all out of the sky. It looks like the base of a tank with a ton of rocket launchers, big and small, on the top. For their modified humans, we know they should also have at least one control type, and a melee type. Luckily for us, some of our scouts spotted Umi far off so we don’t believe she will be participating in this battle. Unluckily for us, Suzuki and Mira will most likely be participating so be careful.”

“What’s so dangerous about Suzuki and Mira?” somebody asked.

“We’ve had trouble handling them in the past” Sakano said. “Mira has some unpredictable attacks so be careful of that. Suzuki’s attacks are also somewhat unpredictable. Anyways as always, be on the lookout for new modified humans.”

“What’s a control type?” Maki asked.

“If you know what Sham and Nozomi are like then think of something similar” Sakano responded.

“What about their regular forces?” Rin asked.

“Oh right. They’re nothing special, we’ve probably all faced them by now so I didn’t think they were worth mentioning. Just be careful of bullets, rockets, and other explosives. Attack when you think you’re safe and you should be fine. There will be radio silence for the most part so I guess keep that in mind. Once the fighting starts we will have trouble knowing what everyone else is doing as they will be using a more secure communication, and since we’re not piloting machines we don’t have access to that. Anyways-”

“Enemy is in sight. All units advance and engage the enemy!” A voice suddenly said.

“Oh, times up. Good luck everyone, try not to die.” She said before dashing in the direction everyone else was going.

“Everyone to my left, deal with air enemies. Everyone to my right, deal with ground enemies. I’ll help handle the ground ones. Nozomi, hang back a little and assist where needed. If you kill all the enemies nearby you, then move to where you’re needed. Now move!” Nath said as she began dashing downwards towards the enemy.”

“Understood!” Maki yelled as she dashed upwards towards the enemy with Rin. Within seconds they caught up to a large group of human shaped machines making their way to the enemy and moved in front of them.

“Do we stay with them or move ahead to intercept any threats?” Rin asked.

“Move ahead probably so we don’t accidently-“ Maki was suddenly cut off by several screams cutting through the air.

“What’s tha-“ Rin was suddenly interrupted by Maki shouting “SHIELD NOW!”.

One second later explosions lit the sky, with the group of machines behind them disappearing in an instant. Maki saw another girl get caught by surprise right as a rocket slammed into her. Maki was sure Rin was screaming something at her but she couldn’t hear her over the explosions. The girl dashed out of the explosion looking confused when another rocket hit her. Maki then saw the girl drop from the sky.

“RIN! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!” Maki shouted as loud as she could but Rin couldn’t hear her. Maki was blinded as a rocket slammed straight into her shield. Her ears were still ringing from the explosions around her disorienting her. Once the rockets stopped Maki let her shield down and made her way to Rin. She thought Rin was saying something but couldn’t hear her still.

“Rin, are you ok?” She called out.

When she heard no response, she called out again. “RIN!”

She was directly in front of Rin now and could see her mouth moving but no sound coming out. “RIN! ANWER ME!”

“I can’t hear you” Maki heard very quietly.

Maki grabbed Rin’s hand and started pulling her back towards their camp when another person came up to them.

“Get back, our forces were just obliterated here. You need to defend while we wait for this area to be reinforced.”

“What?” Rin called out, still in a confused state.

“You’ll be better in a minute or two, get back into the fight!” The person yelled at them.

“Understood?” Maki said.

“Do you understand or not?” They shouted more annoyed now.

“Y-Yes.” Maki said before moving away from them.

She felt Rin pull her and followed Rin upwards, looking around them for any sign of threats. She could see several machines flying towards their area. _Enemies I think?_

“Maki, are you better? I think my ears have stopped ringing mostly.” Rin asked.

“I think so. It’s died down a bit for me and I can think properly again.”

“I’m going to take care of those enemies there, wait here in case more come.”

“Be careful of another rocket barrage!” she called after Rin. _That must have been one of their super weapons. I should have asked Rin if she saw where the rockets came from._

Maki saw another girl moving behind the one who yelled at them a minute before. Looking around she could see several machines in front of the girl distracting her. Deciding to help she moved behind the machines to trap them between her and the two girls. As Maki was moving she heard a loud scream and saw the girl who was behind had moved forward and cut the other girl with a spinning disk. _She wasn’t on our side!_ Maki realised.

Maki dashed back towards the two of them to try and help but as soon as she got close enough it was too late. The other girl looked at her as if she was challenging Maki to try and save the dying girl. Maki dashed down to try and catch the falling girl but was cut off by the other one who sent several spinning blades that were releasing beams after her, forcing Maki to turn up sharply. Maki tried moving to the side but the other girl moved there making her dash back. As she moved back Maki realised her mistake. She was now surrounded by spinning blades, with the only exit in front of her towards the girl who now had a menacing smile.

Spotting a small opening between two of the blades Maki dashed towards it praying she wouldn’t be cut in half. Seeing this the other girl moved to cut Maki off, but let out a scream instead as Rin came from behind her and slashed her with a sword, giving Maki enough time to get out of harms way.

“Maki this way!” Rin shouted.

Seeing no other good options Maki followed Rin with the other girl close behind. Three cylindrical shaped robots came flying towards to them and formed a triangle. As soon as her and Rin passed through, a green field formed between the robots. Their pursuer dashed through but as soon as she touched the field her dashing stopped and her movements became very slow. “What?” she yelled before launching more spinning blades at the robots creating the field.

“Maki, Rin, leave her to me. You two fall back and support the defence” Nozomi said as she moved past them. Raising her arms, green blocks appeared and surrounded the girl limiting her movements. Nozomi then pointed her arms at the girl and several beams shot out from her, splitting apart as they passed through the green barriers to fill the small space.

Maki wasted no time and dashed back towards their camp. On the way she saw some machines flying below her in the same direction.

“Rin, keep moving back to our defensive line. I’ll handle the ones below”

“Got it” Rin said as she moved passed Maki.

Maki watched their movements for a few seconds as she predicted their movements before unleashing a hail of beams at them. A third of them exploded before they could react to her attacks. They started spreading out to avoid her. They countered her attacks with some rockets and beams of their own but Maki was prepared for it. She dashed through their beams and once in an opening she fired her beam rifle at the rockets, creating a space for her to move through safely. Positioning herself in the middle of the group she fired her bazooka and each of them leaving only two left. One flew up while the other moved down but they weren’t fast enough to avoid her rifle’s beams and both burst into flames.

Maki moved onto the next group of machines. They were greenish with yellow on the front. _Those are probably beam focused_ she thought. Sneaking behind them she repeated her previous strategy of ambushing them with a large attack. Once again most of them were destroyed in seconds. Instead of spreading out they moved in together and focused on shooting as many beams as they could at her. Maki fired her beam rifle into their group while moving between the beams as they spread out.

Eventually only one larger reddish one remained. It began shooting beam spheres in a spiral pattern, with the spheres curving in the air. Noticing that her rifle wasn’t having much of an immediate effect, Maki began firing as many rockets at it as she could. The machine responded in kind, with it releasing several of its own rockets. The rockets at the front moved quickly in a straight line in the direction they were fired from, while ones launched from behind moved slower but curved towards her, locking onto her.

Maki dashed to the side in a U-turn to get behind it, but it rotated in the air to keep facing her. Stopping, she continued her barrage of rockets into it. Several beam particles appeared in front of it, getting sucked into it’s yellow eye. Sensing danger Maki put up her shield right before a laser shaped beam shot out from it. Once the attack stopped its attacks stopped for a moment.

_It’s stunned, now’s my chance!_

Maki dashed forwards until she was only a few metres away before firing as many rockets from her bazooka into its yellow eye. It once again began outputting it’s beam spiral. Maki moved with the spiral to avoid being hit while still being able to fire rockets. Just as it started shooting several of its own rockets several explosions came from it and its attack stopped as it began falling.

Watching the machine as it went down Maki saw two more modified humans dashing below her while spinning, a trail of light behind them from their dash.

 _Where are they going?_ She thought as she looked in the direction they were heading. _No, not there!_ She screamed internally as she began dashing to follow them. She could only look on in horror as they got further away from her, too fast for her to catch up to.

_Where’s Rin? Where’s anyone?_

Placing a finger to her ear, she clicked a button on the headpiece she was wearing, deciding the situation unfolding was enough to break radio silence.

“Everyone nearby our giant base thing, two modified humans are heading towards your location. Whatever you do, do not let them get close to our super weapon.”

Finished talking she let go of the button. _Are those two just ignoring everything around them?_

She continued chasing them, hoping that they would get slowed down by something so she could engage them. A massive storm of rockets came towards them, fired from the direction they were heading towards. Rather then using a shield or slowing down, they continued their straight-line dash towards the super weapon. The one in front became surrounded by a red glow. They blazed through the rockets in front of them, seeming to take no damage, while the one in the back followed close behind. Maki dashed through the opening in the wall of rockets as it came towards her, hoping to save time in her pursuit.

Ahead of them was now a large army of machines ready to defend the super weapon. _There’s no way they can get through that_ Maki thought. The group fired beams and rockets at the two modified humans but instead of retreating they angled their dash downwards a bit and continued their dash.

 _What in the world? Are they crazy?_ Maki thought as she moved upwards to avoid the massive attack before she got too close. Machines moved to try and surround the two people but were quickly passed by as they ignored every enemy around them. Maki could see the super weapon preparing a massive barrage of beams and rockets and moved further upwards so she wouldn’t get hit with friendly fire as it attempted to down the two threats.

Loud screams cut through the air as fast rockets were released towards the two, with several beams spheres and lasers following right behind. The two of them immediately swerved to the side, beginning a U-shaped move to approach its side. The machines chasing them exploded as they were caught in the attack meant to down the two modified humans. _That sacrifice had better be worth it_ Maki thought bitterly, feeling sorry for the people piloting the machines.

The two of them rapidly approached the super weapon, its beam attacks having no effect of them as they dashed through. Nath suddenly passed Maki making a dash straight towards them in a pointless attempt to prevent the disaster about to happen. The one in front became surrounded by a red glow again while the one behind slowed down allowing some distance to form between them as the one in front sped up even more. Seconds later the one in front smashed into the side of the super weapon, an explosion coming from the point of impact., taking only moments to carve a hole and appear out the other side. They then started to put as much distance as possible between them self and the weapon. The one in the back dashed into the hole, but didn’t come out the other end confusing Maki.

Before Maki could question what was going on the answer presented itself in front of her. Large colourful blades suddenly burst out of the super weapon and began spinning around, slicing it to pieces. Explosions appeared everywhere on its surface, with several bursting forth from inside. Nath finally reached the opening, firing several rockets inside before retreating backwards.

“She’s shielded! It’s pointless to attempt to take her down right now!” Nath shouted before dashing around to catch the other person who caused the disaster.

 _How can you attack and be shielded?_ Maki wondered. Floating in the air she watched as their super weapon continued to be destroyed. A large explosion suddenly erupted from it, with several more happening within seconds of the large one.

 _I guess that was the ammo supply_ Maki thought. _Everyone else seems to be chasing the other person down, maybe I should wait to ambush this girl._

Spotting someone dash away Maki started her pursuit. Taking notice of their turn, Maki dashed ahead to cut them off. As she got closer she noticed a familiar twin-tailed hairstyle on the black-haired girl. As the girl got closer she could make out red eyes on her.

Pointing her rifle at her Maki called out “Nico, stop right now!”

Instead of slowing down Nico continued her dash, coming straight towards Maki. Maki prepared to fire but right before pulling the trigger she hesitated, _she was friendly with me earlier_ , Maki thought while remembering their earlier encounter. An impact to her stomach brought Maki suddenly back to reality. She fumbled with her rifle trying not to drop it. Coughing Maki turned around to see Nico hovering close by, looking straight at her.

“Hesitating is going to get you killed you know? Are you really that dumb?” Nico asked while giving her a questioning look.

Maki quickly fired her rifle at Nico who spun around to avoid it.

“Were you part of the group that destroyed our anti-air system? If so good job.” Nico said. “Let’s play a game, let’s see if you can catch me before the real fun starts” Nico taunted, gesturing towards some fog coming towards the battle field before dashing away.

All Maki’s internal senses were screaming at her that it was bait, and that she should head back to protect the other super weapons. Deciding to listen to her instinct, Maki dashed back towards Nath and the others. Confusion settled in as she noticed the fog beginning to cover the battlefield. _Huh? Why is that fog moving so fast?_ She thought. As she approached she saw Nath, Nozomi, and Rin grouped up.

“Maki! You’re ok!” Rin shouted as she hugged Maki.

“Where’s the fog coming from?” Nozomi asked. “That’s not natural. Is it related to the attacks on our military bases earlier?”

“I don’t know, but where are the others?” Nath asked.

“Not sure.” Maki replied.

“Well we took out one of the people who destroyed our super weapon there. Where in the world were you Maki?” Nath asked with an annoyed tone.

“I spotted the other girl leave and tried chasing her down”

“And?” Nath asked.

“She got away. I think she was trying to bait me into an ambush” Maki replied.

“Fair enough I suppose” Nath said. “Let’s continue this battle then. Be careful of the lack of vision” She said as she flew into the fog.

Maki followed but quickly lost sight of her. _How is anyone supposed to see in this?_ She wondered.

Her thoughts were interrupted as a machine she didn’t recognise flew above her. Another one flew past her below, and then several more flew past her. Maki turned around quickly and shot as many as she could before following them. Her chase didn’t last long as she quickly lost sight of them.

Hearing some whirling sounds, Maki put up a shield just as a spinning blade smashed into her shield. Letting out a small squeal Maki dashed upwards hoping to get out of the fog. Looking behind her, she could see the same girl from earlier chasing her and catching up. Maki stopped her dash to fire several rockets before dashing to the side hoping it would slow the girls advance.

While dashing some chains suddenly appeared in front of her forcing her to swerve quickly to the side. As she did that she saw several machines crash into the chains from the direction she was going. _That was close_ she thought. Looking back she couldn’t see the girl anymore. Her relief was interrupted when she heard someone say “Got you now”. Spinning around she saw the girl along with several spinning blades coming right at her leaving her no time to avoid the attack. Shutting her eyes in fear she felt something grab on to her ankle and forcefully drag her to the side, avoiding the blades. Opening her eyes again she saw a chain wrapped around her leg. The girl from before gave her a look she was unable to read and dashed out of sight.

 _These chains are probably a bad sign_ Maki thought as she cut the one around her leg with her sword. Moments later she found herself surrounded by bigger chains and before she could process what was happening several smaller ones snaked around her, wrapping themselves around her tightly preventing her from moving.

Screaming, Maki tried to break free but they were bound to tightly around her. “Rin, Nozomi, somebody help me!” she yelled.

“Stop struggling tomato-head. The only other person here is me” a familiar voice said behind her.

“N-Nico?” she yelped in surprise. _Why, why her again?_

“You didn’t play my game. You make me sad” Nico said feigning hurt.

Maki could feel herself being dragged down. Unsure of what was happening she decided to try and play along with Nico. “I was busy. I can play that game now if you want”

“Nah, you lost. You’re unable to move right now and our fog is preventing any of you from seeing.

 _Our fog? Was this caused by them?_ Maki thought.

“I’m guessing you’re all probably in panic right now at being unable to see anything. Unluckily for you, we have several special units who are trained to fight in this” Nico bragged.

 _Keep her talking. The more I learn the better._ “Yeah, you got us pretty good. We were caught completely off guard”

“I know, right? Most of you seem to have no clue what you’re doing. Anyways enough talking for now, let me see that bazooka of yours” Nico said as she grabbed it. Examining it for a second, she threw it away. “You won’t be needing that now. Shall we move on to your other weapons then?”

“What do you want? If you’re just going to kill me do it now” Maki said trying to hide the fear in her voice.

“You don’t need to be so scared, I just saved your life so why would I kill you right now?” she asked cheerfully. “I’m just disarming you so you won’t shoot me in the back once I let you go. Although you may want to stay like this because no one is going to attack you while you’re chained as they’ll all think I’m handling you”

“What?” Maki asked confused.

“I just wanted to ask you a couple questions”. Nico took out two pictures and showed them to Maki. “Did you see any of these two?” She asked.

Maki examined them and tried to remember the meeting from earlier. “I think that black haired guy was there for preparations. I don’t know about the other person”

“What was he wearing?”

“Umm, a white coat I think. Why?” Maki asked, now curious about what Nico wants.

“Better than none of them”. Nico started patting Maki’s head. “Thanks a lot, this really helps Nico”

“How did this help you, and why did you just speak in third person?” Maki asked.

“Because I thought it was cute” she pouted. “Anyways I have a meeting with someone now, try not to die again ok? Also, since I spared your life please stop fighting in this battle. Bye!” with that Nico dashed away out of sight. The chains binding Maki disintegrated as Nico left.

Once free, Maki moved down to find her bazooka. It took her a few minutes to find it on the ground with all the other rubble. _This field was clear earlier. Just how many people died now_. She could smell something horrible but couldn’t figure out what it was. Covering her nose and mouth with her sleeve, she started looking around for the source of the smell.

She came across a large burnt machine where the smell seemed to be the strongest. Looking inside she quickly discovered what the smell was. Several burnt bodies were inside, some of them still burning. Maki quickly got away and tried to put as much distance between it and her as possible. Feeling nauseous, she landed on the ground and threw up. After one painful minute which felt like hours, she got up and began flying back to their starting positions.

As Maki arrived she could see several injured people laying on the ground as some medics gave them morphine to remove the pain. She went over to the medical supplies and took some. Then she began helping with the injured.

“Shouldn’t you be fighting?” one of the medics asked.

“I was spared on the condition that I stop fighting this battle. I’m also a medic so I can help here”

“Some people are going to be annoyed and say you should have kept fighting anyways. They would also say whoever spared you is an idiot. As long as you do a good job none of will say anything ok?” The medic asked.

“That works with me”

* * *

After an hour, the fog began disappearing and the enemy retreated inside it, bringing the battle to an end. The once clean field was now littered in ruined machines and burnt bodies.

“You should have been more careful!” Maki said annoyed.

“Sorry. It’s not my fault my heat got so high! It was going up faster than normal while I was inside that fog, almost as if there were small pieces of something I was dashing through causing a bunch of friction” Rin said trying to defend herself.

“Then stop dashing all the time like an idiot!” Maki snapped at her. “What if you got killed? Do you have any idea how me and Hanayo would feel?”

“But I didn’t die” Rin said. Seeing the look Maki gave her she added on “Sorry. I was just trying to avoid getting hit”

Before Maki could respond she felt someone tap her shoulder. Looking behind her, she saw Nath holding someone.

“Is there anything you can do for her?” Nath asked, her voice emotionless as she set the person on the ground.

 _Sakano!_ Maki felt around Sakano’s body for a pulse. After ten seconds of not finding a pulse Maki concluded there wasn’t one. “Sorry, she’s dead” Maki said sadly.

“I see. I figured that was probably the case but thought it was still worth asking. Thanks for checking anyways” Nath said before turning to leave.

“Wait!” Maki shouted.

“What?”

“Black haired guy, white coat, did you see someone like that?” Maki asked.

Nath thought about what Maki said for a second. “Why?”

“I was curious. One of their modified humans was looking for him”

“His name is Asashi. He was killed at some point during the battle. How do you know someone was looking for him?”

 _I should probably have not mentioned that. I guess I’ll just have to tell the truth_. “Some girl trapped me and showed me two pictures, one of him and one of someone else. She asked if they were in this battle and I told her he was. After that she disarmed me and let me go” Maki said, leaving out that she was told to stop fighting.

“I see… some of us a are being targeted then. I don’t think he was considered a big danger by our enemies so it was probably for personal reasons. I’m glad that at least you made it out fine”. Having nothing left to say, Nath left Rin and Maki alone again.

“What’s that girl look like? Maybe we should be careful of her” Rin asked.

“Red eyes, black twin tails. Her name’s Nico”

“How do you know her name?”

“Not now” Maki whispered. “Maybe when we’re back home”.

“Ok?”

Someone came over to them then. “Hey you two, we should head home now”

“Huh?” Maki asked.

“Nishikino bunker. We got radioed that a military outpost nearby was levelled not long ago and they’re requesting that we return immediately. Mako is also thankful you two are safe and says to be careful on the way back”

“We can head back soon. Just give me a few minutes to finish patching Rin up and check on some of the others I’m taking care of. I’ll have to let the other medics know I’m leaving then”

“Sure, we’ll be waiting over there. Meet us there when you’re ready”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long chapter (word says ~5800 words), I’m sorry. I didn’t plan for it to be this long but somehow I wrote this much.  
> This chapter was supposed to have another part but I’m going to break this into two chapters as otherwise this chapter would be too long and I wouldn’t have it finished for a lot longer.


	5. Bow and Sword

Once Maki finished with Rin and let the other medics know they were leaving, she went over to the group waiting for her.

“We’re fine to leave now” she called out.

“Ok. Some of us are already in the air, the last of us are taking off”

“Where are you guys going?” Nath said as she came over.

“A military base near our bunker was destroyed so we’re leaving now to check on it before heading back” Maki responded.

“Sure, I’ll have some more people go with you. I can’t go myself but hopefully they will be helpful in case anything happens” Nath said.

“Ok thanks”

“Before you leave, do you have any thoughts on the fog during the battle?” Nath asked.

“It’s probably being created by the enemy somehow, but I’m not sure how” Maki responded

“I see. So even you’ve reached that conclusion. Anyways, take care” Nath said.

“We will, thanks” Maki said before flying up with Rin.

After letting the others know some more people are coming back with them, they all left together. Thirty minutes later someone started radioing them. Maki responded to the incoming call.

“Hello? Who is this?” Maki asked.

“Hanayo… enemy… started firing… city”

“What? How many?”

“… not sure”

“We’ll be over right away!” Maki said before disconnecting.

“Enemies are attacking a city, probably the same one from before! Let’s hurry up” Maki told everyone.

“It sounded kind of staticy” Rin said.

“We’ll worry about that later” Maki said. _Although it shouldn’t have static. Maybe somethings wrong on their end, I’ll have to let papa know later._

After another ten minutes Maki could hear someone trying to contact them again. Rin moved over to Maki and responded.

“Hello. What is it now?”

“…”

“Hello?” Rin asked again.

“City… attack…….. dangerous…. Come…” The person said before it was entirely static.

“Could you repeat one more time?” Maki asked but there was no response to her question.

“Let’s move quickly, the bunker might be in danger!” Rin said as she sped up.

“Hold on, don’t move so fast that no one can catch up!” Maki shouted after her.

* * *

“The city under attack, it’s a trap. It’s incredibly dangerous, DO NOT COME!” Hanayo shouted into the radio. “I repeat, don’t come, it’s a trap to lure you inside!”

Listening for a response, Hanayo only heard static. “Please respond!” She shouted again.

“Hanayo that’s enough, we’re not getting through. Give us some time to see if we can fix whatever’s wrong” Someone said.

The door opened and another person walked in. “We just checked, we can’t get any visuals on the city anymore. I think there’s some sort of interference going on. Either the area got hit by an EMP or they have something to block signals”

“How are we going warn them then!” Hanayo shouted.

“We can’t, we just have to hope they got enough of our message”

* * *

As they arrived Maki could see the city under attack. Several buildings were destroyed leaving lots of rubble and fire.

Seeing Maki in shock, Rin decided to take charge. “Maki! Follow me. The rest of you split up and take out the enemy!” Waiting until Maki nodded to confirm she understood, Rin moved down to the city.

Inside they spotted several four-legged machines the ground. Maki moved to one side of the street while Rin moved to the other. As they passed overhead the fired their weapons down to destroy them.

“Next group” Rin said just as an explosion was heard behind them. “Huh?”

Maki quickly looked around assuming to see a machine getting destroyed but was shocked at what she saw instead. A large skyscraper’s bottom was blown out and it was now falling on top of them.

“Rin!” Maki shouted as she dashed over some buildings to the side. As she passed over them several beams, bullets, and rockets came at her forcing her back. She had just enough time to see several machines on the other side trying to keep them in the skyscraper’s path. Looking up she also saw several beams getting shot out the skyscraper’s windows trying to prevent them from escaping.

“Maki this way!” Rin screamed at her before smashing through the window of a building. Maki followed her, narrowly avoiding hitting a wall inside before coming out the other end. She was met by a large amount of bullets and rockets. Maki could see Rin dashing a metre above the street swerving out of the way as rockets came at her. As she tried following Rin the building they just left exploded creating a shower of debris. Rockets were being fired out every window in the street at them, almost hitting Maki.

As the skyscraper crashed behind Maki, she had a sudden realisation. _They were never trying to destroy the city. All this rubble, this set up of machines, hiding inside buildings… this was a trap designed to lure us in and we fell for the bait._

Several humanoid shaped machines came from above to block her path to Rin. Raising their arms, they fired beams at her forcing her to dash to avoid being hit. As she did that some more machines came from behind and fired rockets, trying to force her to dash into some.

Instead of attempting to dash out of the way Maki waited until the rockets were close to her. Once they were, she created a shield around her and let the rockets hit it before she tried dashing out of street level. A large laser appeared over the street as Maki moved up. As soon as she touched it she immediately moved back down. _Why can’t I dash through that?_ She screamed in her head.

The machines from before were now surrounding her and simultaneously fired rockets at her. Maki fired her beam rifle at one of them, making sure to hit its rocket along the way before quickly dashing through the opening. She saw several of them get hit by their ally’s rockets. Taking her chance, she fired her rifle to destroy them so they wouldn’t cause more issues.

Maki was then forced to move to the side of the street as several machine guns fired from the other side at her. Just as she moved over the buildings on her side of the street exploded catching her by surprise and leaving her no time to react. Coughing a bit from the smoke she moved over where buildings used to be to get away from the machine guns, her once bright red hair becoming covered in ash.

Maki spotted a group of machines on her side at an intersection. As she dashed towards them a laser filled the area where they used to be, leaving no trace that they ever existed. Looking around for others Maki only saw group after group be destroyed by ambushes. Right before giving up hope she spotted a familiar orange haired girl.

“Rin! This way!” She shouted, catching Rin’s attention.

She moved towards Rin hoping to meet up with her when several rockets suddenly interrupted their reunion. She looked at where the rockets came from. _Curse all of this!_

Inside an apartment was a large machine, red orbs visible at every window firing rockets and beams. Rin noticed this quickly and shouted at Maki “How are we going to destroy that?”

“Just run away” Maki said. Looking around to make sure that plan was viable she saw they were surrounded, machines moving in to force her and Rin closer to the apartment. “Never mind, we dash around like madmen and let it create an opening for us”

Rin pointed to the top of the apartment. “I think it’s the one firing the giant lasers. We can’t run with it still alive”

“Then we destroy it instead” Maki shouted, her plan changing yet again.

Moving to one side while Rin moved to the other, Maki fired her beam rifle while Rin fired her machine gun while dodging attacks from the machines around them. One suddenly made a sprint towards her as it began glowing bright red. Sensing danger Maki fired her beam rifle at it twice, managing to hit it. The machine exploded leaving a bright red sphere in it’s place moving in the direction it used to be. Maki moved out of its way, getting hit by a rocket in the process. Screaming in pain she took her bazooka out and fired aimlessly at the wall of machines surrounding them to thin their numbers.

Rin quickly passed under her shouting “base of the apartment”. Maki looked and saw what Rin was trying to do. She stopped her attacks and followed Rin, letting all the machines fire at them. Rockets fired by the machines around them missed and slammed into the base of the apartment, while the apartment machine’s attacks hit the enemies around them instead. _This might destroy part of the city but it’s the only chance we have_ Maki thought.

Rin quickly changed direction and reversed her dash. Maki followed assuming Rin must have seen something she didn’t. Her assumption turned out to be correct as another large building collapsed into the apartment.

The apartment collapsed under pressure from all the rockets revealing a very unarmoured machine inside. _So it was using the building as armour was it? Time to end this_. Maki moved inwards with Rin and began firing at every semi-important looking part of it. Within five seconds they managed to collapse the machine bringing its terror to an end. After that they attacked the machines around them. After one minute only the two of them were left, surrounded by burning parts and twisted metal.

“Are you hurt?” Maki asked.

“Just a bit. I got hit several times by some machine guns and rockets. I avoided all the beams though” Rin said.

“That’s not too difficult when you’re dashing all the time” Maki said. “I got hit by a rocket, a laser, and was caught in some explosions. Other than that, I’m mostly fine, although I should have papa do a check up. Let’s head back now?”

“Up there” Rin said pointing at the sky.

Confused Maki looked up and saw two people hovering above.

“I think we need to figure out who they are first” Rin said.

“Good point. Let’s try to make sure they don’t notice us coming” Maki said.

Moving up Maki began to hear the two people arguing.

“There was no point in coming here, Kotori’s obviously not here” the blue haired one said, holding a large bow.

“This should have been the city she went too though” the ginger haired one said. “This is also the most likely place she would have been defeated”

“She could be dead for all we know. You could have gotten into a lot of trouble if it wasn’t for me! We’re already going to explain why so many of us died for nothing”

“It wasn’t for nothing, we killed all of them I think. Besides, we could have come a lot sooner if you let me!”

“You didn’t have permission Honoka! You would have just been executed for deserting! There aren’t any modified humans here either, so she probably disappeared somewhere-”

“Look Umi! People!” Honoka interrupted.

The two of them watched as Rin and Maki moved up to the same altitude. Honoka looked around for a second before remarking “I think the four of us are the only ones alive right now.”

“Why did you tear up the city like that!” Rin suddenly cried out. “Do you have any idea how much people died there! Are there even any civilians left?”

Umi ignored Rin and asked “Do you two know if a battle was fought here around two weeks ago?”

“Yes, there was one” Maki said. Umi and Honoka’s expressions became darker upon hearing her answer.

“So… if a battle happened here and you’re here… that means you probably fought Kotori. As you’re still alive, that means Kotori didn’t win” Umi said.

“LET’S KILL THEM! KILL THEM NOW!” Honoka screamed, dashing towards Rin and Maki.

Maki and Rin didn’t have time to respond before Honoka was in front of them surrounded in a red glow. The glow suddenly exploded leaving Maki and Rin unable to see temporarily.

“Ahh” Maki shouted while covering her eyes.

“HOT!” Rin shouted.

Maki felt something sharp cutting through her stomach and immediately dashed backwards. Her entire body felt very hot. _How did she raise my heat? This is bad, even if I’m modified and should take less damage, with this much heat I’ll go down quickly._

A storm of beams suddenly came towards her. Maki dashed out of the way with Honoka following close behind. Desperate to stop Honoka catching up to her, Maki stopped dashing and fired her beam rifle, dashing again before firing it once more. Honoka ignored the attacks and dashed through them. Maki quickly looked for Rin and once she found her, dashed as quickly as she could towards Rin. Honoka shouted “Shield Invert!” and a barrier passed through Maki, stopping several metre’s ahead of her. Maki kept going towards the barrier thinking she could pass through until she smacked into it. Still processing what just happened, she rolled out of the way as Honoka stabbed where she just was.

Maki dashed along the edge hoping to find an exit but became filled with fear as she saw that she was trapped inside a spherical arena. Maki could see Rin trying to come over but was too busy dodging beams and rockets fired by Umi to make progress. Giving up, Rin charged at Umi. Maki then moved over to the middle of the arena to give herself more room to dodge Honoka’s attacks. Maki felt her stomach and felt some small relief that her wound closed already, silently thanking her father for giving her faster healing.

Spotting Honoka moving towards her again, Maki fired her bazooka several times at her. Honoka dodged them all, taking several sharp turns. _She’s just as bad at managing her heat as Rin_ Maki thought. Honoka was suddenly surrounded by a cone of pink and charged straight at Maki, who fired several more rockets at her. The rockets exploded upon hitting the pink cone leaving Honoka undamaged. Maki attempted to spin out of the way, screaming in pain as a sword went through Maki as Honoka passed by.

Maki dashed away trying to get as much distance between them as possible but started panicking as Honoka began catching up again. She stopped quickly and fired her beam rifle at Honoka’s cone instead of her bazooka, and was surprised when Honoka let out a yelp of pain and dashed away from the rest of her beams. _That cone destroys rockets but not beams_ Maki realised, quickly forming a plan to fight Honoka.

Maki moved on the offensive now, firing a mix of beams and rockets at Honoka to keep her away. She managed to hit Honoka several times but quickly realised that Honoka was a lot more durable than Kotori. _She’s too reckless_ Maki thought while shooting at Honoka, _I could probably use that against her. It will require me fighting recklessly to bait her, but that’s probably my best hope of survival right now_.

Maki stopped mid-air and switched between her bazooka and beam rifle without moving, leaving Honoka a path towards her which Honoka took. Honoka became surrounded by a red glow and released it in an explosion near Maki. Maki managed to make out Honoka’s silhouette in the light and fired a rocket at her. The rocket passed through Honoka confusing Maki until she felt something very hot and hard hit her back knocking her forward. Rolling in the air she saw Honoka dashing towards her again.

Maki dashed down just as Honoka reached her, cutting her previous location with her sword and leaving a reddish glow for a second. Maki then fired her beam rifle into Honoka who was now spinning around to find Maki. Once Honoka found her, Maki dashed out of harms way again.

_I didn’t know she could do that, this was an awful idea. What else can she do?_

Honoka charged Maki again who managed to barely avoid the attack. Maki then spotted Rin coming, firing her machine gun into Honoka’s back. As soon as the bullets hit, Honoka dashed up, curving to come down on top of Rin. Maki fired her bazooka ahead of Honoka to block her path to Rin causing Honoka to swerve out of the way. Once Rin was closer Maki called out “How did you get in here?”

“I just dashed in. I think the field might just stop us from leaving” Rin replied.

Maki raised her shield quickly when Honoka tried interrupting them with another attack. As soon as Honoka collided, she moved up again.

“By the way, that blue haired girl followed me” Rin said just as several rockets followed by beams smashed into Maki’s shield.

Once the attack stopped, Maki stopped her shield to let her and Rin dash away again.

“Blue haired girl?” Maki asked.

“Ya”

They both charged towards Umi, avoiding her attacks. Umi then fired several blades at them which they avoided only to be caught by surprise as the blades switched direction mid-air and flew into their backs. Honoka took the chance in their confusion to catch up and slash Maki some more. Maki recreated her shield and sent it quickly outwards knocking Honoka back to defend herself. She then kept the shield active to give herself some time to breath.

Rin was almost caught up to Umi now but as Rin came closer, Umi dashed extremely quickly away before stopping and pulling her bow back, particles starting to gather in front as she aimed. Rin moved out of the way which Maki understood, but even Honoka stopped her assault on Maki to get away. _Why would she get away from that_ Maki thought just as Umi released her attack.

The large blue beam soared across the sky, piercing through Maki’s shield instantly. Maki was caught in the beam and carried by it until she smacked the edge of Honoka’s shield around the area. Five Honoka’s were already moving in for the kill, Honoka seeming to have known what would happen. Coughing some blood out, Maki fired her rifle at one of the Honoka’s with no effect. She fired at a different Honoka instead but nothing happened either. Giving up, Maki waited for them to get closer before rolling out of the way at the last second. With the Honoka’s grouped up together right in front of Maki, she fired her beam rifle at them while watching for a reaction from one. She heard a grunt of pain from one of them and targeted that Honoka with her bazooka to force her away. Instead of dashing away, Honoka’s fist glowed red while she swung it forwards, destroying the rockets.

Honoka then glowed a bright red colour and shot forward towards Maki, destroying all rockets in her path. Maki switched back to her beam rifle and fired it into Honoka who ignored it and sped up. Maki moved out of the way as Honoka passed her. Honoka then turned back around and came at Maki again even faster. Maki dodged Honoka several more times until she slowed down. Her glow exploded out but Maki was prepared this time, shielding her eyes with her arm. Looking back again she could see Honoka coming towards her with a sword raised. Maki looked down quickly to confirm what she was thinking. _The real one is down there trying to get past me while leaving this fake one_.

Maki ignored the one coming towards her and fired her beam rifle at the one moving below. Just as the beams hit Honoka below she heard a voice behind her say “Bad guess” as a sword cut down her back. Maki immediately created a shield and sent it outwards to knock Honoka back. She coughed again and wiped her mouth with her sleeve, noticing some blood now. _I’m going to die at this rate_ she thought. _Whoever’s listening up there, please let Rin be safe_.

…

Rin was dashing around avoiding Umi’s attacks when she saw Maki get hit. _I have to do something_ , _but what can I do with this girl trying to kill me?_

She avoided another rocket when a thought came to her, _that might work_. Rin continued dodging Umi’s attacks, occasionally firing her machine gun at Umi while waiting for the right moment. Looking towards Maki and Honoka, she decided to try her plan. Rin dashed close to Umi again but instead of attacking she created her shield. Umi raised her bow again, letting particles gather at the front.

“You’re point blank now, are you an idiot?” Umi asked.

Just as she fired her beam, Rin immediately stopped creating a shield and dashed to the side, her legs scraping the beam a little. Umi’s eyes widened as she saw where her beam was going, crying out “Honoka!”. Rin took her chance and a pink cone formed around her as she pointed her sword out and charged straight into Umi. Now in Umi’s face, Rin repeatedly slashed Umi with her sword leaving Umi with no time to aim properly. Umi quickly raised her bow and fired several rockets which Rin easily avoided, swerving behind Umi and attacking her back moments later.

Umi dashed away again and fired more rockets. Rin charged forward again, a pink cone coming from her sword surrounding her. Umi then fired several beams into Rin knocking her back. Rin quickly recovered and dashed straight towards Umi again who fired several more rockets. Rin moved through instead of dodging, letting herself get hit by the rockets which caused her walkie talkie to come loose and fall. Blood came from her mouth from the attack as she resumed her assault on Umi.

…

Maki dodged another attack by Honoka, immediately dodging a second Honoka’s attack. She had given up on attacking for now, hoping to stall long enough for Honoka to make a mistake. Honoka charged forward again while Maki dashed backwards. While moving back she noticed a large beam coming towards them. _Now’s my chance!_

Maki stopped her dash back and dashed towards Honoka instead. She raised her arms in front of her head as she collided into Honoka who swung her sword into Maki. Maki ignored the pain and created another shield, sending it outwards to knock Honoka back just enough to be caught by the beam as it passed by, taking Honoka with it. Maki quickly followed and as soon as Honoka hit the edge of the barrier she fired her bazooka, dashing around before firing again to hit Honoka from as many angles as possible. Honoka was still stunned from the force of the beam and was unable to dodge any of the rockets.

The arena disappeared as Honoka lost consciousness, falling towards the ground now. Maki coughed again and wiped some more blood off her mouth before dashing towards Honoka again. Part way through Honoka’s fall she woke up and tried to dash away. Maki didn’t let her, firing several more rockets into her until she started falling again. Soon Honoka crashed into the street leaving a crater where she landed. Maki flew up slowly, too tired to dash anymore.

“Maki! Are you ok” she heard Rin call.

She looked up to see Rin moving towards her while covered in some blood.

“I’m alive. I want to go home” she said exhausted. “What happened to the blue haired one? Umi I think it was”

“I destroyed her bow and attacked her until she was unconscious. After that I came over as fast as I could” Rin said, also tired from the fight.

“Is she alive still?” Maki asked.

“I don’t know. What about her?” Rin asked, pointing towards Honoka.

“She’s not going to live without medical attention. Since we’re the only ones in the area she probably won’t survive”

“Can’t you use your first aid kit?” Rin asked.

“Ignoring the fact that I’m not sure if she’d try to kill me still, I lost it somewhere so I can’t do anything” Maki responded sadly. “I think I might have some morphine in my pocket. I can at least give her that so take the pain away as she dies”

After injecting Honoka’s unconscious body with morphine the two of them left back to the bunker.

* * *

“Maki, I’m going to head out to deal with something. Just stay here and rest, your mother will come over shortly to check on you and Rin” Mako said as he left the hospital room.

“Ok papa, be safe” She said.

Maki waited several minutes before getting up to follow him. _Where’s he going? He made it sound like he’s leaving the bunker._

As she opened the door a worried looking Hanayo was there.

“Maki, what are you doing out of bed?” She asked worriedly.

“Papa left and I was worried. It sounded like he might be leaving the bunker so I wanted to check up on him” Maki said.

“Don’t! You’re injured, go back in bed now!” Hanayo scolded her. “I overheard someone on the radio begging for help. Mako was nearby and took over the call. I think he’s getting some medics and an ambulance carrier to leave and get them”

“But-“ Maki started before being interrupted by Hanayo. “No buts, go back to bed now” Hanayo said.

“Fine” Maki said as she crawled back in bed.

Thirty minutes later she could hear some voices in the hallway. She got up to look and saw two stretched being raced down the hall. She spotted Umi laying in one, conscious but not resisting at all. _The other one must have the other girl, Honoka I think it was_.

When Mako returned to check on Maki she asked him “What are those two doing at the bunker?”

“Which two?” He asked.

“Umi and Honoka. Blue and ginger haired ones”

“Ah. Umi radioed us and begged for someone to help them. She said she only knew enough to keep Honoka alive temporarily, so we went over and picked them up and then brought them here for treatment”

“They just tried to kill us. Are you sure it’s safe to bring them here?” Maki said.

“You brought Kotori here even though she tried to kill you. Besides, we’re bringing them to a special unit in the hospital where we can contain them in case anything happens, although it’s likely nothing will happen” Mako said.

“How did Umi contact us?” Maki asked curiously.

“She said she found a walkie talkie and tried using it hoping that someone would help. I think it was probably Rin’s because she didn’t return with the one she was given, and we weren’t contacted over open radio channels. Anyways, I have to go back and to check on Honoka”. Stopping by the door he added “Also, didn’t Kotori mention at some point something about Umi and Honoka? Maybe these two are the same ones?”

“They mentioned Kotori, so they’re her friends I think” Maki said.

“Then could you, Rin, or Hanayo let her know later today please? She would probably like the see them” Mako said before leaving.

Maki sighed as she lay back down in bed. _I hope Kotori won’t be upset with me or Rin_.

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this chapter was enjoyable. The next chapter will take longer, sorry. Hopefully my writing isn't awful either.
> 
> Also, some video's to show what modified human's are like and why they're so powerful if anyone's interested  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8uGRa9sEX8  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwrjRjkUviQ (mute music probably)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second story now (first one on ao3), hopefully you can all enjoy it. More chapters will come later, I make no guarantees on how long it will take. Chapter 2 will be posted here soon. 
> 
> Please comment and tell me what you like, what you didn’t like.
> 
> Also I'm sorry if it looks weird. As I said, this is my first time using ao3 so I'm still learning how to format things properly.


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